Diane Carman, whose reasoned, left-leaning columns made her a reader favorite and a talk-show target for nearly a decade at The Denver Post, will leave the paper next week for a university position.

Carman has been the Post’s anchor columnist since 1998, spotlighting issues large and small with careful reporting and a writing style favoring conversation over confrontation. She leaves to become director of communications for the University of Colorado at Denver’s School of Public Affairs, where she will spend a good portion of her time as liaison to the Presidential Climate Action Project. The project’s aim is to get candidates from both parties to adopt an agenda for global-warming action.

“It’s a great opportunity, at a time in my life when I’ve got a lot of energy and at least one more career I want to pursue,” said Carman, 56. “It felt like the right time to challenge myself.”

“We thank Diane for her contributions to The Post over a long and distinguished career,” Post editor Gregory L. Moore said.

“She leaves a mighty legacy as a columnist with deep passion and compassion for the people and issues she wrote about. We wish her well as she moves on to other challenges. I know our readers will miss her as much as we will.”

Carman has been with The Post since 1989 as an award-winning editor and writer. Her last column will appear Oct. 21. Denver Post editors have said they will seek a new columnist, though “replacement is too big a task,” as Moore put it.

Michael Booth was a health care & health policy writer at The Denver Post before departing in 2013. He started his journalism career as an assistant foreign editor at The Washington Post before moving with family to Denver and taking a brief stint with the Denver Business Journal. During a 25-year career at The Post, he covered city and state politics, droughts, entertainment and wrote Sunday takeouts, and was part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams for breaking news coverage.

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